Totally non-Symbian but still a valid link-of-interest for many, Engadget have been evaluating the Blackberry Storm, very much a Nokia Eseries competitor, and have come up with a refreshingly honest critique of the sprung-screened Storm - I've played with one and agree that this is one technology the Symbian world should steer clear of. Comments welcome if you've tried one too... BGR has also released its Storm review on the same day - longer, but with some very pointed criticisms. Both worth a read.
Nokia have been awarded the Green Award 2008 Grand Prix with their 'Power of We' campaign. This was an internal campaign designed to encourage discussions around environmental issues affectingNokia . By promoting their environmental programme to the global workforce, the individuals in the company could start to make a positive change to the world.
Epocware have updated their security/reminder application Handy Safe Pro. Allowing you to store passwords, user names, pins and other paraphernalia (and manage them on your device or via an included PC application), this latest version has a recovery operation for accidental deletions, sub folders, and URLs now act as hyperlinks into the Web Browser.
Electronic Arts' football simulator FIFA 2009 is now available on the N-Gage platform. Just open your phone's N-Gage app, go to the Showroom section, select "Options" and then "Update Now" to see it. (It should also become available through the N-Gage website over the next day or two, if you prefer to install games through your computer.) This release is a bit of a surprise, as it had only just been announced a few weeks ago and hadn't even made it into N-Gage.com's upcoming games list. Obviously EA were working on this a long time before they announced it.
Yup, the infamous Carnival has reached 150, so congratulations all round. It's hosted at AAS favourites Mippin too, so double the reason for a link of interest here!
Ah yes, there's always a tingle of excitement when someone shows off a whole new form factor, especially one which combines full width qwerty keyboard, wide screen and, in this case, touch PDA mode and dedicated gaming keypad as well. Presenting the iCEphone - maybe a form factor that would suit the future of Nokia's Communicator line? Comments welcome! (via Unwired view)
Rita El Khoury often seems to come up with discoveries that the rest of us overlook - in this case, it turns out that freeware star cCalc (a scientific calculator) has a big brother, cCalcPro, designed for the landscape screens of the Nokia E61 and E71. Here's Rita's write-up, with screenshots.
For those happy to 'open sign' their utilities, note that Swim, the background sync tool for S60, has been updated to v0.41 and, notably, the scheduling problems of earlier versions are gone. In case you hadn't heard of Swim, it syncs your phone to Google or Ovi or GooSync, etc. automatically. And no, we still don't know why this functionality isn't part of S60 itself...
Nokia's Beta development teams do seem to be working in parallel to a degree. With the launch of FriendView, their Chat extension to Contacts has now been updated to BETA 4, adding friend profile pictures on its maps, plus you can also now make calls from that view. There's also comprehensive access point selection (favourite Wi-Fi, preferred GPRS, etc) Which of the two chat/presence systems do you prefer?
Following on from cell tower positioning, GPS and Wi-Fi-based positioning (see previous news item), we now have 'indoor positioning', using dedicated transmitters in shopping malls, airports, etc. Here's a video demo of indoor positioning, courtesy of Nokia's Way We live Next project (nb. link is to file in MP4 format)
Nokia Beta Labs today made available a preview of the next version of Share Online, Nokia's media sharing application. Share Online version 4 has an improved upload/download experience which allows asynchronous usage, adds an outbox to make it easier to manage uploads and has improved active standby indicators (including the ability to remove them). The new version is currently only available for the N96, 6210, 6220 and 5320. Read on for screenshots and more details.
